How did companies and service cope before zero hours?

Conrad

CLAPTON wrote: »

Just to be clear, I would love every single person who wants a job to be able to get one preferably earning more than the average wage.

But elsewhere you decry the relentless rise in costs? Increasing everyone's wage is a guarantee of higher costs and us being less competitive than many in the world thus would cause a loss of jobs. Do you ever see mse threads asking where someone can pay more for insurance so they can support better pay for the workers there? Just once?


There is a way forward however. It's called the enterprise culture and it is this and only this that will raise living standards, and thankfully the Tories are spreading this culture.

CLAPTON

Conrad wrote: »

But elsewhere you decry the relentless rise in costs? Increasing everyone's wage is a guarantee of higher costs and us being less competitive than many in the world thus would cause a loss of jobs.

You have totally missed my point.

Your quote cuts out the vital sentence afterwards.

PS. I also know we can't all earn more that the average wage.

Prothet_of_Doom

Graham_Devon wrote: »

How did any of these business using them ever cope?

.

By using experience and statistics to predict demand, both weekly, monthly and seasonally.......You know in advance that in the 8 weeks before christmas you will need double the staff.




by using overtime, and 'part time saturday staff' and students... I worked in a petrol station 2 nights a week age 18, and they knew that if offered more shifts I'd do it....This wasn't a zero-hours contract as I always did 10 hours a week, but occaisionallly I'd get another 10 hours. Which might explain my A level results:rotfl:

by having a list of employees who would be happy for extra overtime if given an hours notice.

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When I managed 26 people on a 3 shift system, I knew which 10 would NEVER come in if phoned in an emergency, and which 10 would always come in. The other 6, they would if they could.

by having a few more staff that they need

by borrowing from other departments, and stores and locations. You come into work, and the boss says....Here is £3 for the bus fare get over to the other side of town.

by having permanent "supply teachers" ..... My father in law was employed in the 60's as a supply teacher for liverpool city council. On the few occasions when they had more supply teachers that missing teachers, they were sent to a school to work individually with less able students. or were told to help out the truant officer.

N1AK

CLAPTON wrote:

Do you really believe that we need a legal definition of 'standard demand roll'?

No, but then I didn't suggest that as a solution and I don't think it would be an effective one either

Probably the simplest solution would be to structure tax, NI, minimum wages etc in such a way that companies pay a small premium for zero-hour labour vs employed labour. Even if the premium was only 4-5% then it would discourage people using zero-hour labour where there is no, or negligible, benefit being gained from the flexibility.

I'd also be tempted to try a soft touch approach. Employ some employment auditors who would audit zero-hour use at some of the largest users (including councils). If they find that zero-hour contracts are be used where there isn't need they could advise on this and request that changes are made. If companies continually ignore those requests then maybe stronger sanctions could be considered.

I'd also like to see considerably more research done into how many people are actually on genuine zero-hour contracts and how many of those are working in roles with considerable variation in demand. It could be that this is a non-issue.

I don't want to see zero-hour contracts stopped because they can be used to benefit businesses and provide good employment. What we're seeing reported is that zero-hour contracts are becoming an easy option for employing into all sorts of roles that don't need to use them, if that's true then we should act.

N1AK

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

By using experience and statistics to predict demand, both weekly, monthly and seasonally.......You know in advance that in the 8 weeks before christmas you will need double the staff.

Many of which incur additional costs. Most consumers care that their shop is cheapest, not how much the supermarket staff are paid.

I worked in planning (production not people) and it's nice to think that if people were just a bit smarter then we could plan around anything. It simply isn't true. During the early summer weeks the sales of meat in supermarkets can be the highest in the entire year or the lowest based on how sunny it is on Fri/Sat.

Weather is a very obvious factor in demand however other things like whether teams get through stages in tournaments, news stories etc can vastly alter demand.

Even if you do know that you'll need 200% staffing over the run up to Christmas you would almost certainly have to build inefficiency into your operation for the rest of your year to be able to cover 4+ weeks of double demand. Supermarkets have been making use of agency staff as part of their solution to increased staffing over Christmas for years.

What I haven't really seen explained so far by anyone entirely anti-zero-hours is why an agency which finds workers for short periods (even single shifts) is ok but a company that does it for themselves isn't? I don't really see why a middle-man somehow makes everything better.

Thrugelmir

noisla wrote: »

I feel far more valued now than I ever did in a perm role.

Really? I wouldn't be so confident. You are on a zero hours contract for good reason, i.e. you are expendable. While loss of knowledge is a temporary set back. Few people in finance are indispensible these days.

ruggedtoast

I'm not sure if the rules are changed now, but zero hours contracts used to be used mainly in FE and HE for lecturers who would do odd tuition where needed in multiple institutions but wouldn't have an ongoing teaching load in one. Nevertheless they all still needed the staff email addresses, payroll, CRB checks, and parking spaces etc

There was eventually a massive outcry about this as when the recession started to bite people found they had no hours anywhere but were unable to claim benefits because they couldn't tick the box to say they were unemployed.

In turn the employers refused to fire them because they would then be eligible for redundancy payouts, which in the public sector can be significantly higher than statutory minimum, nevermind the consultancy process with the unions.

I suppose they all starved to death in the end.

wotsthat

N1AK wrote: »

Probably the simplest solution would be to structure tax, NI, minimum wages etc in such a way that companies pay a small premium for zero-hour labour vs employed labour. Even if the premium was only 4-5% then it would discourage people using zero-hour labour where there is no, or negligible, benefit being gained from the flexibility.

Cut to the chase. Why do companies use zero hour contracts? It's because the alternative is more expensive.

The consumer and/or taxpayer needs to pay more for the stuff they buy and demand that the extra cost is spent on wages. Given Gary Glitter could set up a business selling kids clothes and, as long as the products and price were right, make a go of it then it's unlikely that the consumer can be persuaded.

Your solution recognises this and effectively legislates for higher prices which is anything but simple.

You acknowledge that the data is sparse but we need to be careful not to legislate for a problem that isn't there or is being exaggerated.

Thrugelmir

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's just been announced that a fifth of those working for Torbay Council are on zero hour contracts.

Did have the thought. What's the seasonal breakdown of the numbers?

N1AK

wotsthat wrote:

The consumer and/or taxpayer needs to pay more for the stuff they buy and demand that the extra cost is spent on wages...

Your solution recognises this and effectively legislates for higher prices which is anything but simple.

The issue with that view is that you could make the same case for the NMW, workplace safety, product safety, polluting, discrimination, animal welfare etc. Let's just get rid of all of those rules because even though a company could let employees handle unsafe chemicals while making food that is toxic for £2 per hour it won't happen because consumers will demand it stops

It's a nice theory to think that somehow legislation is wasteful and that the population will efficiently and effectively control this via how they spend their money but it's a pleasant fiction at best. I've, honestly, seen people buying cage eggs which cost more than barn or free range eggs that are on offer. Unless those consumers were actively supporting lower welfare standards it's not a great example of consumer action.

If it turns out that zero-hour contracts are being used in decent numbers in roles where the benefit to the company is negligible I believe the downsides to society and the employees outweigh that negligible benefit and intervention is necessary.